A PIONEERING information technology centre hailed as the future for public services in Wales was opened by First Minister Carwyn Jones yesterday.

The Shared Resource Centre (SRC) at Blaenavon will pool all IT-related activity involving Torfaen and Monmouthshire Councils, as well as Gwent Police.

It also represents an attempt to turn Blaenavon, a cradle of the industrial revolution, into a leader of the digital revolution that it is hoped will transform the Welsh economy.

As a bonus, too, it could help deflect persistent calls for wholesale local government reorganisation. Yesterday the CBI called for the number of councils in Wales to be cut from 22 to seven.

At Blaenavon, however, there was much positive talk about what the SRC could achieve. The three bodies involved say they expect to save millions of pounds by using it instead of having separate IT departments.

Alison Ward, the chief executive of Torfaen Council, said: “This is a win-win situation. There are significant cost savings to be made, and we also have the opportunity to maximise the skills that are available to us.

“There may be a teacher with a particular specialist expertise at one of our schools. Thanks to the SRC, they will be able to pass on that expertise not only to other schools in the borough, but also to teachers further afield.”

The IT capability provided by the SRC will also enable parents to have greater interaction with schools. Instead of once-a-year parents’ evenings, they will be able to have direct email contact with teachers via a local network.

“Studies suggest that children’s grades can improve by 20% if parents are actively involved in their children’s education,” said Torfaen Council Labour leader Bob Wellington.

“We are also driving ahead with IT developments in our schools – recently I met some six-year-olds in one of our schools who are already writing PowerPoint presentations.”

Bob Greenland, the Conservative deputy leader of Monmouthshire County Council, said links were being established with private sector businesses that would be using the facilities of the SRC.

“This is a very good example of where the public sector, the private sector and the third sector can work together well,” he said.

Steve Thomas, the chief executive of the Welsh Local Government Association, said the idea for the SRC had been born in a conversation he had at Seattle Airport five years ago with Farooq Dastgir, now the centre’s director.

“I was in Seattle to see the guitar Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock, while Farooq was there on more serious business. We had a conversation and I’m very happy that this has now been achieved.”

Mr Thomas said local government reorganisation was now about merging functions rather than merging councils – and that the SRC was a prime example of what could be achieved.

Mr Wellington said he had great ambitions for the area.

“A centre like this will provide high levels of training and skills. We are serious about turning this part of Wales into a new Silicon Valley.”

Local authorities have been under pressure from the Assembly Government to save money by collaborating with others. Earlier attempts to do so have not always been successful.

Last year it emerged that an earlier project covering nearly half the councils in Wales had collapsed in recriminations.

A report commissioned from PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that councils in South East Wales working together across a range of functions could save £37.5m over 10 years. But when necessary investment was taken into account, the saving reduced to £20.9m.

In 2004, the Assembly Government report Making the Connections stated: “The greatest gains are likely to come from organisations introducing shared support functions.”

Two years later, an independent report for the Assembly Government from Sir Jeremy Beecham and colleagues including Dame Gillian Morgan – now Permanent Secretary at the Assembly Government – recommended public sector bodies should address capacity gaps and achieve improvements through shared services.

It was made clear that councils had five years to make headway on working together or local government reorganisation would be back on the agenda in 2011.